AFP Video

Lima (AFP) – Paleontologists have unveiled remains of the newly discovered ‘Perucetus colossus,’ a giant whale from Peru which could be the heaviest animal to have ever lived.

Kinshasa (AFP) – ‘Catch-fetiche,’ or voodoo wrestling is a wildly over-the-top Congolese sport where participants fight each other and use magic to try to win the match. To get ready, fighters prepare incantations to use in the ring or commune with their ‘spectres’ or ‘fetishes’, animals or objects that they believe to be imbued with magical powers or inhabited by a spirit.

Abuja (AFP) – The top military brass from across the West African region gather for an extraordinary summit of the ECOWAS Committee of the Chiefs of Defence Staff. They discuss strategies to address the recent coup d’état in the Republic of Niger and ways to restore stability and democracy.

Taipei (AFP) – “We do not want to become a scapegoat of China’s troubles,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told AFP in an interview. Wu’s warning comes as democratically ruled Taiwan heads towards a presidential election next year, while facing increased military and political pressure from China across the Taiwan Strait.

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Images of military police cars outside Rio de Janeiro’s state hospital Getulio Vargas where wounded suspects of a police operation are being treated. At least nine people died in a police operation targeting criminal gangs in a complex da penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, the latest in a series of deadly security force raids across Brazil. IMAGES

Lima (AFP) – Scientists unveil a partial skeleton of a newly discovered whale found in Peru that lived nearly 40 million years ago. A total of 13 gigantic vertebrae — one of which weighed nearly 200 kilograms (440 pounds) — were found at a site in a coastal desert of southern Peru, as well as four ribs and a hip bone. IMAGES

Zhuozhou (China) (AFP) – Swathes of northern China are submerged in filthy floodwater after days of historic rainfall battered the capital city of Beijing and surrounding areas. Torrents of brown water swept tons of rubbish through a park in suburban Beijing, while normally bustling main streets in Hebei province to the southwest of the capital turned to rivers.

Qamishli (Syria) (AFP) – The first full moon in August, known as the Sturgeon supermoon lights up the night sky around the world including over Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli, rising behind the Graves Light, a lighthouse, off the coast of Boston, United States and rising above the ocean at sunset on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach in Brazil.

Moirang (India) (AFP) – Deadly ethnic violence in India’s troubled Manipur state divided communities but each side tells similar stories of loved ones murdered, homes torched and harsh new lives in camps. At least 120 people have been killed since May in armed clashes between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki in the northeastern state. Many in Manipur believe the number could be higher.

Lerma (Mexico) (AFP) – Volunteers clean Mexico’s Lerma beach, where dark stains in the water are being blamed on an oil spill at a gas production platform of state oil firm Pemex. Several NGOs, including Greenpeace, have denounced the spill, which on 12 July covered some 400 square kilometers.